Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/88

76 The Giant's daughter said to her husband, "Sleep not, or thou diest; we must fly quick, or my father will kill thee." So first she cut an apple into nine pieces, and put two pieces at the head of the bed, and two at the foot, and two at the door of the kitchen, and two at the great door, and one outside the house. And then she and her husband went to the stable, and mounted the fine grey filly, and rode off as fast as they could. Presently the Giant called out, "Are you asleep yet?" and the apple at the head of the bed said, "We are not asleep." Then he called again, and the apple at the foot of the bed said the same thing; and then he asked again and again, until the apple outside the house door answered; and then he knew that a trick had been played on him, and ran to the bedroom and found it empty. And then he pursued the runaways as fast as possible. Now at daybreak—"at the mouth of day," the story-teller says—the Giant's daughter said to her husband, "My father's breath is burning my back; put thy hand into the ear of the grey filly, and whatever thou findest, throw it behind thee." "There is a twig of sloe-tree," he said. "Throw it behind thee," said she; and he did so, and